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European Council: 21-22 June 2007

My Lords, on any fair analysis, the treaty is very different from the constitutional treaty that was originally negotiated. It is in no sense integrationist. Does the Minister agree that the creation of the office of High Representative, in place of the two existing offices that exercise such functions, and the creation of a longer-serving President of the Council confer no new powers on the holders of offices and so transfers no power at all from this country to the European institutions? On the other hand, on competition policy, even if the protocol that has been agreed reaffirms the legal position, does the Minister agree that the failure to include the reference to free and undistorted competition in the objectives of the European Union means that that does not have the primacy that it has had and that it should retain?